


Annoying Purple Man

by Stormfet



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Feelings, First Meetings, Fluff, Heart-to-Heart, Other, Yasha's past, first time friends, nbd, u know just a casual reveal your entire backstory to a stranger turned best friend
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-28
Updated: 2018-12-28
Packaged: 2019-09-28 23:27:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17192216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stormfet/pseuds/Stormfet
Summary: The first conversation between Yasha and Molly.





	Annoying Purple Man

**Author's Note:**

> Wow two works in two days who else is obsessed with critical role rn anyway I miss my purple man and u bet!! that Yasha and Molly were best friends. (Note -- shoutout to a random tumblr headcannon that Zuella is drow thanks now I can't think of anything else.)

“Nobody should be drinking alone on a night like this.”

Yasha looked up from staring down at the wood grain patterns of the bar table and met the red-eyed gaze of a lavender tiefling. He (or was it she?) was pretty hard to miss. A huge grin spread across his face. 

“Excuse me,” Yasha said quietly, turning back to her drink. 

“I said, nobody should be drinking alone on a night like this,” the tiefling repeated, plopping himself down on the stool in front of her. Yasha let out a long sigh, reaching down and touching the holy symbol strapped to her belt. Guide me.

“I don’t like people much,” Yasha said, tugging her hood even tighter against her head. “And besides. I like being alone.”

“Well I love people,” said the tiefling, gesturing to the bartender to bring two more drinks. Great. Now Yasha was going to have to entertain this stranger for at least a drink. She tried not to groan aloud. “The name’s Mollymauk Tealeaf. Molly to my friends.” He held out his hand.

“Thank you, Mollymauk, for the drink, but I’d rather not have the company,” Yasha said, ignoring the hand. “I’ve been alone for a while, and I quite like it. Thanks.” Yasha closed her eyes and heaved a sigh. Long sentences were tiring. 

“Alone my ass,” Molly half sang as the bartender brought over two brimming pints. “Get a trost in you, I got the good stuff.” He handed a few coins to the bartender. Alone again. Or as alone as you could be with a bothersome tiefling trying to get your attention. 

“Please leave me alone,” Yasha said, meeting his eyes again. The red seemed to flash more brightly, and Yasha noticed the endless white scars criss-crossing his neck. 

“I like your purple eye,” Molly said with a wink. “It matches my skin.”

“Don’t see much like you around here,” Yasha said sullenly, wishing this annoying purple man would leave her alone. 

“That’s ‘cause I’m travelling. I’m a circus man, here!” Molly said with a grin, before downing half the pint. His teeth seemed extra white in the dim bar light. Yasha noticed his canines extended into fangs. She also noticed the extravagant jewels bedecking Molly’s even more ostentatious horns. The bits of a tattoo on his neck creeping under his jawline. A ridiculously high collar on an intricate red coat. Clearly this man liked drawing attention to himself. Yasha sighed again.

“The circus?” Yasha asked. She still wasn’t that interested, but if she kept asking questions she wouldn’t have to talk. 

“The Fletching and Moondrop Traveling Carnival of Curiosities!” Molly spread his arms wide, before shrugging off the jacket. “We’re recruiting.”

Yasha snorted. “Me? Join the circus? Ha.”

“Oh ho ho, my stoic friend, I see I made you laugh,” Molly said mockingly, flicking his tail over the table at Yasha’s hand. She pulled it back in surprise. “My circus talents are getting better by the day!”

“How long have you been a part of...the...carnival of curiosities?” Yasha asked, withdrawing further into her hood. 

“Getting to be the better half of my second year,” Molly said. “I should hope I’ve come along way. Don’t remember much before my circus days. And by much I mean nothing.”

“Don’t hide secrets do you much?” Yasha asked, before rolling her eyes. Nope. She was not getting sucked into this conversation. 

“I find secrets are far more interesting when you tell people them, love,” Molly said, before flicking Yasha’s hood off with his tail. 

“Excuse me,” Yasha said, drawing back. This tiefling was quickly turning from annoying to intolerable. “I definitely don’t want to tell you any secrets, let alone talk to you.”

Molly held up his hands. “Okay. We don’t have to do that. We don’t have to talk. But at least let me sit with you?”

For a moment Yasha had decided to leave the bar, but at this she hesitated. When was the last time she had ever sat with someone else? Just in silence, sharing a drink? It had been months. Maybe even a year. It had just been her and the storm lord, and before that...don’t go there. Yasha jerked herself out of her reverie.

“Fine,” she said, letting herself fall onto the stool with a thump. She downed half the trost. Okay. It was good. 

They sat like this for a long moment, enough to have a few peaceful sips of beer in the company of another soul, before Yasha was interrupted yet again. 

A man about her age had sidled up next to her. Whatever he was about to say left his throat and he turned away immediately upon seeing the death glare on her face. Yasha turned back to Molly, rolling her eyes practically to the back of her head. 

“Straights are the worst,” Molly said as Yasha took a sip of beer. Involuntarily she snorted, sending beer straight up her nose and across the bar. For a moment she stared blankly at Molly before erupting into laughter, so hard that her gut began to ache.

“Oh gosh,” Yasha said, wiping a slight tear from her eye. “I haven’t laughed that hard in ages. Feels good.” Here she paused and looked at Molly, piercing him with a stare. “How did you know?”

“Look at you, girl, your lesbian swagger is so strong I can hardly smell anything else,” Molly said, waving a hand at Yasha and cracking her up again. 

Yasha hadn’t heard these kind of jokes...not since...not since her. 

“I took one look at you and thought to myself, now go be her friend,” Molly said. “Couldn’t help it.”

“I forgot what that was like too,” Yasha said. 

“I don’t know what it was,” Molly said. “But you’ve been through hell and back. I don’t even need to look at my cards, I can just tell by looking at your eyes.”

“You could say that twice,” Yasha said. “But I’m doing better.”

“Are you?” Molly asked. 

“Now I am,” Yasha said softly. Molly grinned back. “Yasha, by the way.”

“Yasha,” Molly said softly. “Do I get to hear more about this terrible dark past of yours?” 

“Only if you buy me another drink,” Yasha said. “Fine. You get your secret.”

“And you get a friend,” Molly said. Yasha couldn’t help but roll her eyes as he sauntered off to grab two more drinks from the bar. Suddenly everything seemed a lot more friendly. What a difference company could make. 

Molly returned with two more pints of beer. “Sorry that took so long, but the bartender was so cute I couldn’t help but dally.”

Yasha turned to look behind the bar. An attractive young woman was taking someone’s order on the left...her sleeves were rolled up very cutely...there was also a fairly handsome man exchanging coins in the middle. Meh on that one.

“Which one?” Yasha asked.

“Wouldn’t you like to know, Yasha” Molly said slyly, touching his tail to his nose. He slid the pint over towards Yasha. “Now. Storytime!!”

Yasha rolled her eyes. “I have to warn you, it’s a sad story,” she said. 

Molly stuck his lip out, pouting. Yasha patted him on the head. “Sorry to break your heart,” she said. 

“Tell me anyway,” Molly said. “I’m all ears.”

“I can’t believe I’m about to tell this whole thing to a complete stranger,” Yasha muttered half to herself. But it had been a minute since she had pieced together everything into an actual sequence of events...pretty much since it had happened it was just a blur of images and painful memories. She took a long swig. 

“About this time last year I married the love of my life,” Yasha said. “It was the best night of my life. But it was also a secret. My tribe...well. There were rules in place to keep us alive. The Sky Spear, she was the mother in charge. And she made it so that we survived. But you were assigned a mate, you see, you didn’t marry out of love. You married out of survival.”

“Sounds harsh,” Molly said. 

“We fought each other to the death to come of age,” Yasha said. “I was named Orphan Maker. By the Sky Spear, when I earned my right of age.”

“That’s horrible,” Molly said, his chin pulling back in disgust. 

“Well,” Yasha shrugged. “That was life in Xhorhas.”

“You’re from Xhorhas?” Molly said, his red eyes bugging. 

“Yes,” Yasha said. “Can we get on with it then?” Molly nodded, abashed. “Anyway. Zuella, the woman I married, was not my assigned mate.”

“Hold the phone, love,” Molly said, leaning forward. “Before you continue to the sad part, tell me more about Zuella. What was she like? Did she wear hats? Was she afraid of the dark?”

“None of the above,” Yasha said with a laugh. “She was beautiful. God.” Yasha felt a rush of emotions flood into her. She hadn’t allowed herself to picture Zuella in months. It had been too painful. It still was. 

Yasha felt a warm touch at her hand, and looked down to see Molly’s hand placed over her wrist. She met his eyes, warm red, the kind that reminded her of the hearth fire. She took a breath. 

“God, man, I loved her so fucking much,” Yasha said. “She was beautiful. She had the darkest midnight skin and her eyes...I called them the moon on a cloudless night, white and bright and full of life. We used to braid each other’s hair at night. Neither of us feared the dark, the dark was where we came alive, where we could be ourselves in secret. Look.”

Yasha dug deep into her mane, pulling out a braid that she hadn’t touched in months. “Zuella braided this on the night we married.” Yasha flashed the ring tied to the bottom, running her thumb over it. Her heart settled in a moment of calm. 

“Fuck, man, this woman sounds incredible,” Molly said.

Yasha smiled. “She was. And they killed her.”

Molly gasped. Yasha felt a sting in her heart, but she kept going. “Yeah. They found out. One of the tribe members...well. Let’s just say he saw something he shouldn’t have. And we ran, faster than I had ever run in my life. But...”

Yasha felt the lump in her throat, sudden and painful because this part hurt. This part hurt bad. 

“But,” she continued in a hoarse whisper. “I had always been the faster one.” Yasha felt her voice crack. “And they got her.”

“Oh, Bahamut,” Molly said, and Yasha felt him scoop her into his arms, press her forehead into his neck and she cried and cried and cried and let the pain pass through her. “Hush, my darling.” Yasha heard Molly say softly above her. “Hush now.”

Yasha coughed, and extracted an old rag from amongst her furs, blowing her nose heavily before shoving it back in, mucus be damned. 

“Yeah, so,” Yasha said. “I ran away.”

“They would have killed you, Yasha,” Molly said.

“I was such a coward. At least I could have gotten her revenge,” Yasha said. 

“No life is worth another,” Molly said. “No need to continue the pain. You did the right thing, Yasha.”

“I hope so,” Yasha said. “Because I certainly don’t feel that way. But. I don’t remember what happened after that much. Mostly because it was crap days on the run in an endless swamp. But eventually I stumbled into a temple for Kord. And that’s when my life turned around a little bit. I remembered things again. 

“The Stormlord told me to go to the Dwendalian Empire. And here I am,” Yasha said. “Found the closest pass could get me in here.”

“How are you enjoying the fine Empire?” Molly asked. 

“It’s fucking awesome!” Yasha said. “Flowers, and trees, and oh gods, sunlight that isn’t filtered through three layers of mist...”

“Darling, wait till you get out of the mountains, you’ll lose your mind,” Molly said. 

“I wish Zuella could see it all,” Yasha said, laying her chin on top of Molly’s head. 

“You should make her see it,” Molly said. “Someday after peace has been made in Xhorhas, we’ll go back and you’ll have all of these things for her and you can put them on her grave.”

“That sounds nice,” Yasha said. “I like the plants the most. I think she would have liked them too.”

“Plants it is!” Molly said, extracting a flower from somewhere on his person. Yasha was sort of surprised he wasn’t wearing a crown. “This one can be the first.”

Yasha examined it. It was a small yellow one, and sort of faded from being tied to Molly. “It’s perfect,” Yasha said, extracting her diary from inside her furs to place the flower gently inside. 

For a moment she felt a happy feeling. For a moment, and then she felt the deep, deep ache of missing her favorite person start all over again. That hole would take a long time to heal though, and even then it would never be quite full. But Yasha felt like a tiny, tiny piece had been healed today. She felt a deep, very faint rumble of thunder. 

“So that circus recruit,” Yasha asked. “Still looking for a member?”

Molly smiled. “Let’s ask the cards, shall we?”

Yasha rolled her eyes. “Must we? Don’t we both know the answer?”

 

“NO!” Molly said, slapping the cards on the table. “Shuffle them, please.”

Yasha sighed and shuffled the thirteen cardboard cards. They felt worn thin from use. 

Molly drew a card. “The chariot,” he said mysteriously. “A journey. A transformation. Coming into yourself.”

He drew a second card. “The shadow. Mystery. Obscurity. A dark presence. Hm.”

“Make much sense then, these cards?” Yasha asked, skeptical.

“You can join the circus!” Molly said. “But only because the cards say so. You’ll be a perfect strongman.”

“Strong woman!” Yasha said in a booming voice, flexing her bicep.

“Even better!” Molly said. “Let’s go get you a tent!”

“Thanks, Molly,” Yasha said. “And thank you for making me feel like a person again.”

“No trouble, darling,” Molly said, his red eyes gleaming as he winked. “Anything for a friend.”

“So you really don’t remember your life at all before the circus?” Yasha asked as they walked outside into the clear night. The moon glowed like a beacon of light. Like the eyes of my wife, Yasha thought. The moon on a cloudless night. 

“Oh, well now that’s a story, darling,” Molly said with a grin. Yasha smiled.

“Well, let’s hear it,” she said.


End file.
